Brexit Thread Seven: More of this shit

[Alberon]

So Johnson gets elected to the tory leadership, under the 'worst thing happens' rule that seems to be almost entirely in force the last few years.

Presumably he toddles off to Brussels where his unicorn and rainbows backstop plan gets shot down. Then what?

[Paul Calf]

Waste time...waste time...waste time...waste time...disorderly Brexit...disaster capitalism.

[pancreas]

DEY IS ALL RACITS

Good article by Patrick Cockburn.

[Suki Bapswent]

Presumably he toddles off to Brussels where his unicorn and rainbows backstop plan gets shot down. Then what?

He becomes the latest fall guy. Cue Nigel Farage. When he fails, Tommy Robinson or some other gutter dweller. I wish I was joking.

[Howj Begg]

DEY IS ALL RACITS

Good article by Patrick Cockburn.

Thanks. I fear this stuff will ramp up with Boris in power and Farage looking over his shoulder. We all need to be aware of it and stand in fierce solidarity with immigrants everywhere in the UK. Their struggle is our struggle.

Amarjite Singh, a Sikh who works for the Royal Mail and wears a distinctive red turban, agrees that open racism fell away from the end of the 1980s up to 2016. He is alarmed today by the degree to which the far right is more active, holding rallies up and down the country at the same time. He says that many Sikhs – there are about 2,500 in Cardiff – voted Leave because they feared that their jobs were threatened by East European immigration, but they found that they were also being subjected to anti-immigrant abuse.

Singh speaks of one incident that struck him as a sign of escalating racism: "Two weeks ago I was on a bus and there was a Somali woman with a baby in a pram which could not be put in the space allotted for it because a young man was blocking it. When the bus driver told him to let her park the pram there, the young man replied: 'Who does she think she is? She's only a foreigner.'"

Very poignant. I know some 1st gen immigrants who voted Leave in London, and similarly fell for divisive rhetoric, and who now regret it. Some come from families which traditionally vote Tory too, so that was a confounding issue in their considerations.

Eurosceptic leaders are in denial about the degree to which the Brexit project depended on beating the anti-immigrant drum. But look at how many Conservative and Brexit Eurosceptics found time this week to denounce Jo Brand and the BBC for expressing purely rhetorical violence. And then consider how few of them have expressed dismay at the real violence that inflicted terrible injuries on young Daniel Ezzedine in the centre of Canterbury.

This is absolutely correct.

The Ezzedine attack is horrifying.

I thought of writing something about how I feel safer in north London against that kind of event given the plurality of ethnicities who co-exist, but then some idiot will reply "knife crime" and someone else will take offence on behalf of somewhere else, so instead I'll just say I hope it does not get a bad point here.

Andrew Woodman, whose mother came here from Portugal in 1952 and his father from Guyana, says that the Brexit vote has emboldened people, "as it does in Trump's America, to say in public what they used to say in private. I have been called the N-word and that had rarely happened in recent years". He adds that all you need to generate racial hatred "is to persuade people that those who are different from themselves are the reason they are poor".

As an Asian woman with two small children, she finds her way often deliberately blocked by white men in the street. She and her Nigerian husband have asked themselves for the first time "if we will get to the point when we will no longer think of this country as our home"

Terrifying. Brexit is incipient race-based fascism.

[biggytitbo]

This debate between Michael Foot and Edward Heath from the first Brexit referendum campaign in 1975 is amazing on so many levels - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuZrzwm6CJs

1: It could have been broadcast in 2016 and would be entirely relevant
2: The general level of debate is a million times higher than anything we get these days
3: Intellectual giant Michael Foot runs rings around lightweight europhile Heath, not just on the EU but on basic democratic and constitutional principles.
4: Foot articulates the fundamental problems with the EU that haven't changed at all in 44 years. Everything he says here has proven 100% right.
5: The debate highlights the problem with Brexit in 2019 and why it has become associated with right wing nationalists - where are the Michael Foot's and Tony Benn's now? The left abandoned the debate to the right, but the actual issues at stake remain entirely the same as they were when Michael Foot talked about them here, just because the left doesn't want to talk about them does not alter that.

Part 2 here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozfrKbJk_Qw

[Johnny Yesno]

It's like brexiteers want to return to the 1970s.

[Paul Calf]

Or are largely in denial that anything has changed since then. Biggy's denial tantrum above perfectly illustrates this.

[biggytitbo]

The point is the debate is 100% relevant now, you could broadcast it today and beside from the brown and beige and 4:3 aspect ratio its totally pertinent.

Except its the left making the argument, articulately and backed by a deep and fundamental set of democratic principles, that EU membership is an antithesis to our parliamentary system, and it's the reactionary tory making the argument for remaining.

[Paul Calf]

Are they talking about the same institution? In the same social, technological and economic environment?

[Howj Begg]

Are they talking about the same institution? In the same social, technological and economic environment?

the hostile environment.

Arguing for Brexit against that backdrop is to completely ignore the actual world around you fostering Brexit, rather preferring to bury your nose and brain in Youtube videos of debates from 40 years ago.

[Johnny Yesno]

Or are largely in denial that anything has changed since then. Biggy's denial tantrum above perfectly illustrates this.

The most obvious change being that the show was originally broadcast in 1975 and the first elected MEPs were elected in 1979.

[finnquark]

Foot had a totally different relationship to Europe than the current crop of Eurosceptics. He was a romantic at heart about almost everything, from his limited experience of the working class to his time as the unions' man in the high command of the Labour Party. Foot's desired relationship with Europe was much closer and co-operative than the 21st century brand of Leave. There as also a rickety reading of history, with his emphasis on the unique nature of English/British democracy. He was incredibly well-read and intelligent for a politician, but his particular interpretation of the development of democracy in these isles was flawed and contributed greatly to his Euroscepticism.

[Johnny Yesno]

This debate between Michael Foot and Edward Heath from the first Brexit referendum campaign in 1975 is amazing on so many levels - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuZrzwm6CJs

2: The general level of debate is a million times higher than anything we get these days

This is true. Actual long form debate rather than soundbites.

3: Intellectual giant Michael Foot runs rings around lightweight europhile Heath, not just on the EU but on basic democratic and constitutional principles.

This, on the other hand, is bollocks.

4: Foot articulates the fundamental problems with the EU that haven't changed at all in 44 years. Everything he says here has proven 100% right.

This is also complete bollocks. As I mentioned in my previous post, at the time the programme was broadcast, the Council of Ministers (and therefore the European Commission) was overseen by an unelected European parliament.

[Johnny Yesno]

Foot had a totally different relationship to Europe than the current crop of Eurosceptics. He was a romantic at heart about almost everything, from his limited experience of the working class to his time as the unions' man in the high command of the Labour Party. Foot's desired relationship with Europe was much closer and co-operative than the 21st century brand of Leave. There as also a rickety reading of history, with his emphasis on the unique nature of English/British democracy. He was incredibly well-read and intelligent for a politician, but his particular interpretation of the development of democracy in these isles was flawed and contributed greatly to his Euroscepticism.

Yes, in that interview, he gives props to fptp over coalition politics. Again, biggy-confirmation-bias-titbo only sees what he wants to see.

[Dr Rock]

To be fair, biggy has successfully managed to steer conversation away from the rise in racist attacks and xenohopia with some pointless shit about the level of debate being better in the old days.

[Johnny Yesno]

Aye, that would have been cunning if it wasn't so obvious. He really treats everyone else here like mugs.

[jamiefairlie]

..disaster capitalism.

And that's the reason why the UK is headed over a cliff, powerful people will become richer and more powerful. There is no chance of stopping it.

[BlodwynPig]

And that's the reason why the UK is headed over a cliff, powerful people will become richer and more powerful. There is no chance of stopping it.

Popping to the Dales for a ramble?  Can't, private game hunting land
Taking your son to the park to feed the ducks? State approved ID and 60 quid
Going down to the corner shop for a pint of milk? Doesnt exist, order online at Walmart's Supplements if you are not banned from internet

Run out of credit for your clean air quota
Gulagged for having a lie in
Man City versus Doha Oilers for your 90 minutes weekly entertainment

Welcome to Great Brutain, 2021

[Zetetic]

Since we've had a good attempt at burying this (in favour of warming over something from the distant past):

DEY IS ALL RACITS

Good article by Patrick Cockburn.

[olliebean]

DEY IS ALL RACITS

Good article by Patrick Cockburn.

From this article:

Pro-Brexit politicians like Michael Gove deny this, but a poll by Opinium found that overt ethnic abuse and discrimination reported by ethnic minorities has risen from 64 per cent at the beginning of 2016 to 76 per cent today.

Let's just pause for a moment to consider how appallingly high that number was to start with, regardless of how much it has risen since. What a fucking disgrace of a country I live in.

[idunnosomename]

the bollocks to brexit luvvies are all bouncing up and down pissing their pants now Tom Watson did a video in a park about a people's vote

[imitationleather]

the bollocks to brexit luvvies are all bouncing up and down pissing their pants now Tom Watson did a video in a park about a people's vote

Does that mean they thought it was good or bad? I'm not going on Twitter to find out myself.

[idunnosomename]

James O'Brien
@mrjamesob

This seems significant. And very welcome.

[Johnny Yesno]

Heh! Heh!: https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1140551183066697728

Replying to @tom_watson

Tom Watson:

• 2014: I demand an EU  referendum
• 2016: I want to end Free Movement
• 2018: Labour is the party of Soft Brexit
• 2019: Labour is the party of Remain

God I'm dizzy
2:26 AM - 17 Jun 2019

[NoSleep]

Tom Weathercock.

[Buelligan]

I think he should go and be with Chuka.

[Crisps?]

Pretty funny seeing people dismiss genuine leftist opposition to Europe because it was a different institution at that time, as if they wouldn't have voted to remain in that version of it too. Far less amusing is exploiting real life victims of racist crime to score points for a political hobby horse.

"All over the country ethnic minorities are victims of more violence than ever - and it's all because of remaining in Europe"

News from the late 70s.

The fate of Daniel Ezzedine is evidence that Britain is becoming a more racist country since the Brexit referendum.

"The fate of Stephen Lawrence is evidence that Britain is becoming a more racist country since we signed the Maastricht Treaty."

Not problematic at all, on grounds of logic or common decency.

[Brexit] is redefining English nationalism in a more exclusive and confrontational way [leading to] to a high flying German scientist, who can easily get a job elsewhere, deciding that he no longer likes the UK and going back to Germany.

So he's not against nationalism, just nationalism that he feels excluded by?

Let's just pause for a moment to consider how appallingly high that number was to start with, regardless of how much it has risen since. What a fucking disgrace of a country I live in.

An EU-wide survey about racism against black people found:

"Perceived racial harassment, such as offensive gestures, comments or threats, was highest in Finland (63%) and Luxembourg (52%) and least prevalent in the UK (21%) and Malta (20%)."

"One in 20 respondents said they had been a victim of a physical attack in the last five years, ranging from 14% in Finland to 2% in Portugal. The figure was 3% for the UK."

"37% reported racial discrimination had stopped them from renting an apartment or house in Italy and 28% in Luxembourg, compared with 3% in the UK."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/28/people-of-african-descent-face-dire-picture-of-racism-in-eu

[Zetetic]

"The fate of Stephen Lawrence is evidence that Britain is becoming a more racist country since we signed the Maastricht Treaty."

Not problematic at all, on grounds of logic or common decency.

I suppose it would depend in part on whether the first trumpeted advantage of the Maastricht Treaty was putting an end to foreign types coming here without individual-permission once and for all.

If that was the top reason given by the British Government for Maastricht, then that would be an interesting historical parallel - and all the more interesting for how little known this was.

Obviously there are difficulties in trying to make single tragedies speak for trends. This is the nature of scandal, however, isn't it? Trying to make sense of horrifying stories in terms of a broader context.

[Johnny Yesno]

Pretty funny seeing people dismiss genuine leftist opposition to Europe because it was a different institution at that time, as if they wouldn't have voted to remain in that version of it too.

No, it's a partial explanation of that position at that time, not a dismissal of it. However, it doesn't make taking the same position forty years later correct.